For St. Paul, $1 million prize for best idea to make the city greater

Got a big idea to improve St. Paul? Polish it up and submit it to judges by April 3, and if it's chosen, you'll receive a $1 million grant from the St. Paul Foundation to make it happen.

The "St. Paul Forever Challenge" asks Minnesotans what they would do with the money to make St. Paul great, and it's one of the more unusual legacies of the 2008 Republican National Convention, which was held in Minnesota's capital city.

Supported by the St. Paul Foundation and Minnesota Idea Open, the seven-month challenge focuses on "innovation, impact and sustainability."

Contest rules ask Minnesotans of all ages to think big but not ridiculously big: "If your idea is to create the first-ever space program for St. Paul, we'll tell you now that it's not going to make the cut."

Foundation spokeswoman Naomi Pesky said the $1 million started as an open-ended donation from the Minneapolis-St. Paul 2008 Host Committee, the bipartisan group that persuaded the Republican National Convention to come to St. Paul five years ago. The money, taken from surplus funds, was to be used for the betterment of the city.

Officials with the St. Paul Foundation saw it as an opportunity to fund a different type of grant than the typical applications they usually receive, which often are written by professional grant writers and evaluated through an elaborate, weighted process that ranks various criteria.

Instead, the public will pick the winner from three finalists chosen by a panel of judges.

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"The challenge's underlying premise is we want to provide a way for everyday people in Minnesota to get visibility for their ideas and have the opportunity to make their idea a reality," Pesky said.

This is the fourth year that Minnesota Idea Open is asking Minnesotans to think big about big issues, but it's the first time the group is giving away so much money toward making those ideas real.

The organization's previous statewide contests have focused on ways to combat childhood obesity, improve water quality and encourage understanding across cultures and faiths. Prizes ranged from $15,000 for winners to $5,000 for runner-ups.

Beginning Feb. 13, ideas for bettering St. Paul will be accepted online at www.mnideaopen.org. A community launch event will be from 3 to 9 p.m. Feb. 16 at the St. Paul Union Depot in Lowertown.

Ideas will be accepted online, by mail or by phone until April 3. Open house events, where participants can trade tips on refining their ideas with representatives of the contest, will be held in March. About 25 to 30 semifinalists will be announced May 9, based in part on their creativity, potential impact and staying power.

Judges will select three finalists who will be asked to make a video pitch to the public. The public will pick an overall winner from Aug. 13 to Sept. 2.

Contest rules limit written entries to 2,000 characters and encourage the innovative but doable over the extreme. The winner -- in addition to the money for their program -- will receive a $1,000 prize. Two runner-ups will receive $500 each. Each semifinalist will get $100.

In 2010, Christine Tubbs took first place in the anti-childhood obesity competition with "Kids Lead the Way," a program that encourages unstructured play through youth-led summer field days.

Two years ago, Peggy Knapp and Lark Weller won $15,000 to launch "Farmwise," an effort to recruit farmers who already have implemented pollution-control strategies on their farms. The goal is for farmers to share tips and tricks and encourage other farmers to join in, with the aim of improving water quality in the Mississippi River.

"It's launched," said Weller, a National Park Service employee from Minneapolis. "The project is still going. We used the money to pull together an advisory board to help us lay a solid framework for the program." The two women have been working to get Farmwise rolling near Northfield, in the Rice Creek watershed of the Cannon River.

"The money was certainly helpful, but what was even more helpful was thousands of people voted for the project," Weller said. "The fact that we won showed that a wide swathe of Minnesotans want farming and clean water to work together."

Last year's prize was shared by three groups, including an organization committed to genocide awareness and a group of Muslim women interested in distributing pink hijabs on the street with the goal of educating others about the head-covering's role in their culture.